


A thousands years old adult who die too much

by Lumeha



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: ... first time writing for this fandom so hm yeah, M/M, Soulmate AU, Tumblr Prompt, also it's been a while since I have written anything so welp, as characters at least, ft. a very short apparition of Peter and the Cloak, so I am not going to tag them here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-05
Updated: 2019-02-05
Packaged: 2019-10-22 20:34:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17669621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lumeha/pseuds/Lumeha
Summary: Prompt #7The age your soulmate is when you meet is on your arm. One evening Tony feels his arm burn and watches the number on his wrist change from 37 to 2649.Or, after everything goes down and everyone is back, Tony asks how it feels to be older than you should be.





	A thousands years old adult who die too much

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt : https://ironstrangeprompts.tumblr.com/post/175252828432/prompt-7-the-age-your-soulmate-is-when-you-meet

They both look worse for wear, bruises blooming under their skin and blood painted on their skin. But their smiles reach their eyes, and Tony feels himself relax near the sorcerer, falling against his shoulder.  Somewhere near, he can see Peter caught in the Cloak, laughing, and he wonders if the weird sentient piece of clothing is doing it to let its master catch his breath. 

He thumbs the mark on his wrist, hidden under his sleeves. There is a story written there, something he doesn’t know about, and the curiosity is burning on his tongue.

\- How do you live with it ?  
\- Live with what ?  
\- With all your years.

Stephen scoffs, but his eyes are merry, while he follows the Cloak and its games with Spiderman. 

\- I am only 37, please.  
\- … I know it isn’t true.  

Yellow and black, a bitter joy, taint the smile on the sorcerer’s lips. Tony regrets saying it out loud, but it is the truth. He caught a glimpse of it when the sorcerer went to explore millions of futures to find the one way, in the way his eyes changed. And he wants to know what is behind… all this. Behind what is written on his wrist, behind the gaze of the sorcerer. Without a change in his expression, Tony turns his wrist toward Stephen. 

He remembers the day it changed, and how he could not explain it, understand it. People could live for thousand of years, he knew of Asgardians at the time of the change, but...

 

_ The pain comes and goes, quick, punching the air out of his lungs by its sheer intensity - burning burning burningburningburning !  _

_ And then _

_ nothing _

_ Just the usual, the aches and pain of a body that lived through a little too much, a little too hard. He is breathless, eyes going everywhere, on the verge of falling into his own mind, when he spots it. The leaning, hard to read numbers on his wrist are now smudged and trembling. _

_ And they read 2649. _

 

\- But I will give it to you, it was 37 before.

Trembling fingers hover near his wrist, over the shaky handwriting, not touching the skin. 

\- I… never realized it would change like that. I wonder...  
\- When it changed ?

The sorcerer nods, biting his lip. Tony gently puts his hand over the trembling one, inviting it to touch the skin. When it happened, he was so sure that something, somewhere, would show up in the world. Something. Anything. How could his soulmate change so much without it being reflected in the world ? But nothing happened. Oh, he had tracked weird events and energy spikes, he still tracks them, but nothing happened at the time of the change.

A thoughtful noise comes from Stephen, who looks at their joined wrists and hands with a soft gaze.

\- That is probably around when I first came into contact with the Eye of Agamotto. 

The Time Stone. Of course. It has the power to wrap time, to mold it, to modify its flow. What is a soulmate mark to its power ? (Something to change, to modify, to edit, to give more years and experience to the other half of his soul) No one ever had a soulmate mark change. Not like that - he searched and searched and searched to understand what happened, and no one had an explanation or a trace of anything similar happening. 

Of course it would involve one of the strongest powers of the universe to explain it. 

\- So ? How can you live with that ?  
\- As well as any thousands of years old adult who die too much do, he answers dryly. 

Tony laughs and Stephen smiles at him and it’s brilliant. He takes his wrist, the 48 written in the bold and messy writing of his hands, and gently rub it with his thumb. The hand of the sorcerer is shaking with tremors. 

There are still questions hanging at the back of his mind. Questions he wants the answer to. 

\- Did you know that I was your soulmate ? Before… ?  
\- I have seen and lived through many futures when searching how we could win this war.  
\- And ?  
\- … And knowing what was to happen to me, I could not make it worse for you by telling you I knew. That would have been cruel. Even more cruel than it already was. 

The feelings are complicated. But Tony thinks he understands. It is true : it would have been cruel, and it had been cruel, even when he did not know it was his soulmate that threw his own life away to save the king. 

(that is how you play - sacrificing pawns and rooks and bishops and queens, for the sake of one life)

\- But you also knew…  
\- That you could save everyone ? Yes. Only you could do it. 

The undercurrent of warmth and trust is evident in his voice, despite eyes looking far, far away from where they are, almost sad. It has been a bet, a coin throw against the current, all coming down one man’s shoulders. Trust. 

\- Well. At least, I am not the old man of this relation. 


End file.
